Standing Committee A

[Mr. David Amess in the Chair]

Clause 9

Limited capability for work-related activity

Amendment proposed [this day]: No. 227, in page 7, line 40, at end add—
‘(5) Regulations under subsection (1) shall—
(a) ensure the full programme of work focused interviews is offered to those in the support group who indicate a desire to take part in these aspects of the programme,
(b) not penalise those persons for failing to participate in these activities, and
(c) treat engagement in—
(i) part time work,
(ii) voluntary work,
(iii) training courses, and
(iv) community activities
as valid outcomes from the work focused interviewprocess that would not automatically lead to a suspensionof payment of the employment and support allowance.’.—[Mr. Hunt.]

Question again proposed, That the amendment be made.

Jim Murphy: We were in the middle of my response to the comments made by Opposition Members. I started by referring to Sarah in the case study in our paperwork and I shall continue from there.
For clarification, the significant point in case study 1 is that Sarah’s condition gradually improved.
I apologise for not greeting you at the start, Mr. Amess. It is great to see you in your place on this sunny afternoon, rather than bleak morning.
For the avoidance of doubt, I remind the Committee that someone is given access to the support group because they have attained the 15 points required and met one of the 46 descriptors. Nevertheless, if that person sought to volunteer for work-focused interviews or work-related activity or, indeed, to enter the world of paid employment, if permitted of course, they would still be treated as a member of the support group in terms of their assessment. Only a medical assessment or a new personal capability assessment can end a person’s membership of the support group. In such circumstances, no member of a support group would be punished for undertaking work-focused interviews or work-related activity. It would not be the volunteering itself that would take someone out ofthe support group, but the new personal capability assessment or, as in Sarah’s case—the case study is very clear—the changing nature of the condition. Some conditions improve gradually over time.

Danny Alexander: I am grateful to the Minister for that clarification. He makes a very important point. Will he clarify what circumstances, in a case such as Sarah’s, or one in which someone has perhaps engaged successfully in work-related activity, would trigger a new personal capability assessment?

Jim Murphy: That is difficult because unlike Sheffield Dave, case study Sarah is not a real person. However, a new personal capability assessment could be requested primarily by a personal adviser who might notice a change in the circumstances, for better or worse. That would be the main means for requesting and carrying out a new PCA.

Alison Seabeck: Following on from the point made by the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey (Danny Alexander) about reassessment, would the new PCA need to be triggered by the personal adviser or client, or could a carer take an interest and perhaps prompt the adviser? Would that be an acceptable trigger?

Jim Murphy: Our preferred option would be through the personal adviser. We have been clear about the opportunity for interaction between a carer and an adviser. For example, from 2008, customers seeking the employment and support allowance should be encouraged to take an advocate with them where sanctions might be involved or they have to prove good cause. There should be a close working relationship between an advocate or a family member, and the customer and the personal adviser. That sort of interaction could lead to the personal adviser requesting a new PCA.
May I turn to the points raised before lunch?

Jeremy Hunt: I want to go back to the point made by the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey about what triggers a PCA. Is the Minister aware that a number of people think that a change in employment status can trigger an assessment of a person’s entitlement to the disability living allowance? That is a serious matter because it is a disincentive to people wanting to engage in employment. The Child Poverty Action Group argues that anecdotal evidence indicates that moving into employment can trigger a reassessment and removal of DLA, which can leave people worse off if they access work. Is the Minister aware of those concerns?

Jim Murphy: I have not had the opportunity to quote from the pamphlet that the hon. Gentleman has in his possession, but he acknowledges that it is anecdotal evidence.
We will structure the new employment and support allowance entitlement according to our policy intention and legal position. It is the personal capability assessment, not an anecdote or pamphlet, that will determine whether someone is in the support group and attracts the higher level of benefit, and we have discussed that in great detail. I hope that that reassures the hon. Gentleman and, through him, the authors of the pamphlet.

Jeremy Hunt: This is very important because it gets to the nub of the question whether the structure of the benefits system is a big disincentive to people engaging with the world of work and because promoting such engagement is the point of the entire Bill. If the Minister does not want anecdotal evidence, will he accept actual evidence from Citizens Advice about voluntary work? Citizens Advice says that
“our evidence shows that sometimes when people undertake voluntary work, it is sometimes interpreted as indicating that they are capable of work and therefore not entitled to benefit.”
I am happy to supply the Minister with the evidence from Citizens Advice, but is he aware of those concerns and will he do anything to address them?

Jim Murphy: There is only one person in the Committee who seems to be confused, and that is the hon. Gentleman, although I hope that that is accidental. The fact is—I cannot be any clearer than this—that the decision on whether a person will be in the support group will be based on the evidence from a medical assessment carried out by a medical expert. If they meet the 15 points, they are entitled to ESA; if they meet one of the 46 descriptors, they are in the support group—it is as clear as that. We could not be any clearer about the employment and support arrangements. Which part of that does the hon. Gentleman not understand?

Jeremy Hunt: I am grateful to the Minister, and I understand all of what he said. However, that was not the point that I was discussing; my point related to what triggers a PCA reassessment and to people’s concerns that it can be triggered by a change in employment status. I have given the Minister anecdotal evidence from the Child Poverty Action Group and Citizens Advice that the PCA can be triggered by a change in employment status. If so, it is a major disincentive to people engaging with the world of work.

Jim Murphy: I can do no better than repeat the response that I gave, although perhaps I can rearrange some of the words. It is the personal capability assessment that will determine whether someone is entitled to ESA and/or the support group, not a change in whether they are volunteering or undertaking work-focused interviews or work-related activity.
The hon. Gentleman might want to make a wider point about DLA, which, like other benefits, can be an in-work benefit, but we are talking about an entirely different benefit entitlement with an entirely different structure for an entirely different purpose. We have been very clear about that, but if he feels that there is genuine concern and confusion—other than in his own mind, from time to time—about a lack of clarity as regards ESA, about entitlement to the support group and about the fact that we will not punish anyone who, for whatever reason, is determined to undertake work-focused interviews or work-related activity when we have not requested it as a condition of entitlement to benefit, I will be happy to join him in finding ways to tackle the issue. As I said, however, we have been very clear with all the disability organisations and in the Bill, as well as in our briefings, draft regulations, meetings, speeches and our comments on Second Reading and in Committee. We have absolutely no intention of doing what the hon. Gentleman—quite fairly, I am sure—is concerned about.

Danny Alexander: I am grateful to the Minister for clarifying my earlier point about what might trigger a new PCA. He made it clear that engaging in work-related activity, or even potentially getting back into work, does not, of itself, trigger a new PCA. He also made it clear that incapacity benefit personal advisers will potentially be in a position to trigger a new PCA. Will he therefore reassure the Committee that the points that he has just made about the circumstances that will or will not trigger a new PCA will be in the guidance to those advisers?

Jim Murphy: I am happy to respond to the hon. Gentleman, who makes a reasonable request. As I said, the personal advisers will trigger the PCA. I should add that Jobcentre Plus decision makers will also have the power to request a new PCA. Through a carer or GP, the customer could additionally request a review of the outcome in terms of their entitlement to ESA or the support group.
As I said, if the hon. Member for South-West Surrey (Mr. Hunt) genuinely feels that there is lack of clarity despite the clear way in which we are setting out our position today, I shall be happy to hear from him, either in writing or in some other way, how we can ensure that people outside the Committee understand our position. The medical assessment will entitle someone to ESA, not the fact that, for whatever reason, someone has taken up or volunteered for work-focused interviews or work-related activity. We are not taking in the Bill the power to do what the hon. Gentleman, perhaps reasonably, is concerned about in terms of conditionality and sanctioning. I hope that that is clear but if, despite our efforts, there is still concern about ESA rather than DLA—they are different benefits for different purposes—I shall be happy to correspond or converse with him.
Where I think there is lack of clarity—we know this from constituency cases—is in the linking rules. There is a genuine lack of understanding. We can see whyand there is a shared responsibility for that. The Government could do more, as I am sure could Members of Parliament in various ways. The voluntary sector could also do more although it already does fantastic work—Citizens Advice does great things. Perhaps we could all do more together on the linking rules. I am sure that private voluntary sector providers, pathways and Jobcentre Plus could do more, but, importantly, Jobcentre Plus will continue to carry out the first of the work-focused interviews so that all the entitlements are spelled out at that stage. That is part of the core script for what Jobcentre Plus will say to its customers at the first work-focused interview.
Specifically on money, the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey consistently raises the issue for the right reasons and to keep us on our toes to ensure that we maintain our commitment to our funding model. I shall repeat what I have said on more than one occasion. The question does not change, nor does the answer. I am not suggesting that the question should change and he should accept that the answer will not change. The roll-out of pathways has the same funding model as the current pathways.

Tim Boswell: I did not intervene earlier because I missed some of the earlier exchanges and did not want to rehearse them because of my absence. The Minister referred to work-related interviews and indicated that there will be a formal script to rehearse the benefits and conditions under which the benefits are payable. My constituency experience and, I am sure, that of other hon. Members is that there are many cases of the Department’s argument being not on the facts of the case but on what was or was not alleged to have been said either on the telephone or at interview. In the interests of clarity and an audit trail, can he give attention to the need for personal advisers at work-focused interviews, particularly the crucial first one, to establish clearly and in writing if necessary some evidence of what is being said to customers so that there is not an argument afterwards about whether they were told the particular circumstances in which the benefit is available?

Jim Murphy: The hon. Gentleman characteristically makes a reasonable point. It is captured by the power in clause 13, which requires action plans to be a written record of the conversation at work-focused interviews. That record will be agreed between the customer and the adviser. However, in addition we intend to include inaccurate information being provided by the adviser or Jobcentre Plus under the good cause for not fulfilling conditionality. The hon. Gentleman may want to reflect on the specifics of clause 13 and the draft regulations, which we have provided. If he is not satisfied with that, we could further debate the matter later. The point is a fair one and the action plans are intended to be a written record of the work-focused interviews.
On the specifics of funding, the hon. Members for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey and for South-West Surrey asked whether it is enough. The funding model will be the same, and the funding will be structured to enable investment in people who wish to volunteer to go on to the support available through pathways to work, even if no conditionality is applied to them.
All that I say to the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey is that we have set aside the £360 million for the proposals on welfare reform. He repeatedly asked whether it is enough, but what is his assessment of any potential funding gap, and how much does he think it amounts to? I shall happily give way to him if he has a specific figure. I say the same to the hon. Member for South-West Surrey. Does he have a specific figure for any funding gap in the pathways to work roll-out? I shall happily give way to him if he thinks that additional investment is needed.

David Ruffley: Will the Minister give way?

Jim Murphy: Of course. First, for the record, the hon. Members for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey and for South-West Surrey earlier raised that issue for good reason, and I am trying to ascertain whether they have made a scientific observation about a funding gap in the roll-out of pathways to work. I gave both hon. Gentlemen the opportunity to answer, but at the time, they were not ready. I shall happily give way to the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds (Mr. Ruffley) and then give the hon. Members for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey and for South-West Surrey the opportunity to answer that question.

David Ruffley: I am most grateful to the Minister. The straightforward answer is that we have heard from the Government neither about the number of existing claimants—rather than new claimants who will claim after 2008 under the new allowance—who will be able to take advantage of the new regime and all its resources, nor about the number of people in the support component who might want the high-end support and resource-intensive advice and backing if they are to take advantage of the work-related activity component. How many of them will volunteer? What are the estimates?
If there is a headlong rush of people migrating from the support component to the work-related activity component, as we hope there will be, with all the condition-management resourcing that will apply, will that investment be enough? We have not heard enough from the Minister, because he assumes that the employment and support allowance will be available for new claimants only, and not for the other people whom I have just listed.

Jim Murphy: Mr. Amess, that deserves the awardfor the longest intervention thus far—with your indulgence, understandably. I shall give way to thehon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey and then to the hon. Member for South-West Surrey.

Danny Alexander: We may wish to reflect on the issue during our debates about later clauses, because it is important and it pertains to the clauses on conditionality. I draw the Minister’s attention to estimates already published by various outside organisations, which are based on written answers that he and the Under-Secretary have given about the costs of pathways to work set against the amount of money available and the likely numbers of people who will benefit. Some assessments suggest that there will be a shortfall of some £200 million to £250 million when dealing with new claimants alone. If the Minister is looking for estimates, there are plenty in circulation. He says, “It is the same funding model,” which is fair enough. However, it requires more explanation. How is it calculated in terms of the numbers of on-flow? I could happily have this debate for a good deal longer.

Jim Murphy: I give way to the hon. Member for South-West Surrey again.

Jeremy Hunt: Like the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, I have received numerous representations from outside organisations on the funding model. The Government must ensure that their sums are right. Will the Minister assure us that the funding model will be the same, and that the funding per person for the people whom he expects to use the pathways to work programme will be the same, too?

Jim Murphy: I have enjoyed listening to the three hon. Gentlemen trying to avoid answering a question and avoid committing themselves to an additional penny of funding. We have said repeatedly—on Second Reading and in various parliamentary forums—that based on all the evidence of pathways to work thus far, we are absolutely satisfied that the necessary investment will be in place through the £360 million that we have set aside. If, over time, there is a change in the profile of those people who come on to ESA, we will have to consider what more we can do. All that I am saying to Opposition Members, three of whom have made this point from the Front Bench on behalf of their parties, is if they share the belief that not enough funding is in place, what additional funding would they commit to? They must answer that question not as Back Benchers raising the concerns of other organisations, but on behalf of their parties. They have positions of responsibility. I am trying to get a sense of the additional funding that they would like to be put in place.

Jeremy Hunt: One of the Opposition’s duties is to hold the Government to account, so will the Minister answer my previous question? I asked him not whether the funding model was the same, but whether the funding per head of person who goes on to the pathways programme is the same in the roll-out as it was under the pilots.

Jim Murphy: In the contracts with the private and voluntary sector the same funding model will be used in terms of the individual. We will ensure that the necessary investment is put in place. One of the things that we look at is the creativity of the private and voluntary sector. Can they do things differently and more effectively, using their experience and their flexibilities? Are we prescriptive about how much each and every instance and each and every outcome should attract? No, we are not. That is one of the reasons why we are involved in the private and voluntary sector in the way that we are.

Tim Boswell: Perhaps I can bring a fresh angle to this little discussion without reopening it and joining the Minister’s list. Our interest in this matter is, if the private sector is able to deliver a more cost-effective model—the Minister, fair-minded man as he is, is prepared to consider that it might be so—should the profit thereby generated be fed into additional or improved services or will it be pocketed by the contractor or the Minister and the Department in terms of a reduced funding requirement? I think the Minister will understand from the exchanges in the Committee that whatever the exact figure, there is a good deal of concern about the ability to operate this scheme. From what I saw of pathways, they are a resource-intensive activity—I am sure that he would concede that—but we need to ensure that we get the best possible value for money and that people, be they on one side or other of the equation, are properly covered for their requirements.

Jim Murphy: That is another fair point, which I will come to in a couple of seconds.
My general concern on this matter—I say this without seeking to incur your wrath for being unnecessarily gentle with others, Mr. Amess—is that I do not enjoy listening to those who voted against every penny of the new investment now saying that they do not think it is enough. That is how I would put it gently. Others will reflect on that and come to their own judgment.

Jeremy Hunt: Will the Minister give way?

Jim Murphy: No; I am going to make some progress.
The hon. Member for Daventry (Mr. Boswell) is on to a fair point about contracts. When, as many of us do, we sit down with the private and voluntary sector providers they talk about their frustration about the way in which in the past some contracts—there is no need to be specific today—created perverse incentives. They achieved their outcomes eight months in and there was no financial reward to encourage them to continue with all their great work for the next four months. Because of the type of people that they are, some continue to provide services. In terms of contracts, it is important that we learn that lesson.
It is also important that as we increasingly devolve some of our welfare provision, we consider recycling the savings for further good work. Our city strategy, which we announced in July, involves 15 pathfinders across the United Kingdom. Two thirds of the people on benefit live in our big cities. I do not say that it is not an issue outside cities, but two thirds live in the cities so it is an additional challenge for those cities to come up with solutions that suit their purposes. The challenges in Glasgow are different from those in east London, which in turn are different from those in Birmingham or Newcastle. We are saying to the cities, “You work with us. You design a solution to the specific problems in your city. And let us see if we can’t further incentivise it.” If a city makes savings and succeeds in supporting people and giving them the chance to work, it should have the chance to retain some of the savings rather than the Treasury and ourselves seeking to claw it back. That is devolution and will ensure a sense of continued momentum. It is important to put that principle into the delivery on the ground.

Jeremy Hunt: I think that every member of the Committee would support the idea of recycling any savings into better support services. For the purposes of clarity, will the Minister tell the Committee what saving he expects to make in the roll-out of the pathways to work programme by using private and voluntary sector providers, compared with the cost of the pilot programme?

Jim Murphy: We will be happy to do that when we negotiate the contracts. I do not think that it would be very helpful to do it in advance. I do not believe that everybody in the country listens to all the specific details of our conversations in Committee, but it would not be a good negotiating strategy to announce today our attempted savings through using the capacity of the private and voluntary sectors.

Jeremy Hunt: Will the Minister give way?

Jim Murphy: I shall give way one more time, and then I shall deal with the amendment.

Jeremy Hunt: I am grateful to the Minister. I am sure that he appreciates that part of the reason for these interventions is that outside bodies are concerned about the financing of the roll-out of the pathways to work programme. Can he confirm that he is not budgeting to make a saving by using private and voluntary sector providers, although if he can make one he will, and that as things stand the cost allocated per head for those using the pathways programme will be the same in the roll-out as on the pilot programme?

Jim Murphy: I seek to be entirely direct with the hon. Gentleman. The targets that we have set are not on funding, savings or efficiency. They are on achieving a net reduction of 1 million in the number of people on IB/ESA over a decade. We have not even set a target for the number of people in the support group, and we are not going to do so as it would create all sorts of unintended incentives in the system. The point is not to assess how much we will save.
We intend to use the private and voluntary sectors because we admire their flexibility, expertise and connections and the relationship of trust that they have in many instances. With the best will in the world, the Government do not have that, regardless of which party is in power. It is important for us to plan for personal advisers to have a relationship of trust with people and support them to get closer to the labour market. Having said that, in carrying out a series of other important priority matters for us the staff of Jobcentre Plus and the personal advisers working under the new deal and other avenues have done a fantastic job, and are recognised throughout the world as having done so.

Adam Afriyie: I think that most Members of the House welcome the Bill and the concept therein of the employment and support allowance. Why does the Minister refuse to confirm that the amount per person will be the same as in pathways to work, which clearly had some benefit?

Jim Murphy: The hon. Member for South-West Surrey has already asked that question. We are not going to set a target per head. It will take as much as it takes to support someone to get closer to the labour market, based on the complicated experiences of the individual. We do not wish to have a public debate by saying that we intend to spend whatever amount of money on each customer. Contracts will be constructed around outcomes, but as a matter of public policy we will not say that somebody with one condition should attract a certain amount of funding, someone with another a different amount and someone with a combination of those conditions a third amount.

Natascha Engel: The hon. Member for Daventry will have seen the wide variety of support given in the pathways to work area in Derbyshire. Even today there is not a fixed amount per head for those who are being helped. That intervention is intended to help Opposition Members.

Jim Murphy: My hon. Friend is right that there isan average, but that is different, from a point of conception, from saying how much. [Hon. Members: “What about the average?”] On the average, additional costs will be involved in helping many people to get closer to the labour market, but I am not going to hazard a guess today as to what they might be and I am not going to set a target. As I have said repeatedly, it will take as much as it takes to get someone closer to the labour market, based on their various experiences and conditions.

Adam Afriyie: I think this is fundamental to whether the amendment would make a lot of sense, because if the funding is not there, any amendments will be pretty much irrelevant anyway. To return to the essential point, however, if an average amount per head is to be paid under the pathways to work scheme across the country—we recognise that the scheme has brought a lot of benefits—why is the Minister unable to commit to achieving that average across the country, or at least to ensuring that the funds per head will remain in the ESA scheme? Does he not have a commitment from the Chancellor perhaps?

Jim Murphy: I welcome the hon. Gentleman to the Committee again—I think that this is his second stint, although we have had six sittings thus far, so it is just as well that we do not get paid per hour.
Mr. Ruffleyrose—

Jim Murphy: No. I will not give way.

David Ruffley: On a point of order, Mr. Amess. I should just like to place it on the record that I am an employer who believes that, in whipping the Bill, we should have flexible working practices and a work-life balance. That is why my hon. Friend the Member for Windsor (Adam Afriyie) has not appeared at every single sitting so far, but we will be seeing a lot more of him in the weeks to come.

David Amess: We have got that on the record. Minister.

Jim Murphy: Thank you, Mr. Amess. I wonder whether I could—
Danny Alexanderrose—

Hon. Members: Flexible working.

Jim Murphy: Okay. One more.

Danny Alexander: I am grateful to the Minister for giving way. Before we conclude our discussion, I have a slightly different question. I appreciate that the Minister does not want to give averages, figures per head or all the things on which he has just been scrutinised. However, he says that it will take as much funding as it takes, so will he explain where the figure of £360 million came from in the first place? That figure has been attached to the funding for this welfare reform project for a long time. Was it plucked out of the air or based on some rational assessment of what might be needed?

Jim Murphy: The £360 million set out in the welfare reform Green Paper is an assessment of how much would be needed to carry out the IT investment and to put in place the support, the personal advisers, the work-focused interviews and the ESA. As I said, we will not publicly set an average or a goal as regards how much getting someone closer to the labour market is worth. If we did, Opposition Members would, quite fairly, say, “Why have you only set this amount? Isn’t it a disgrace that you have set a public financial figure based on each and every individual?”
I do not want to stray into your area of responsibilities, Mr. Amess, but I wonder whether I could be encouraged to come close to a conversation about the amendment before us, although perhaps I should first say a little more about the outcomes in terms of cost per individual or averages. Despite some disquiet in the room, we think that contracts that are not 100 per cent. outcomes based, but a 70:30 mix, are the right approach and will ensure that we do not have the quick-wins situation that was mentioned before our lunch break. A mix of 70 per cent. outcomes and 30 per cent. overheads and investment will enable people to access the welfare provision market in a way that a 100 per cent. outcomes structure would not.
Let me turn to the specifics of the amendment. As I said, we do not want to write anyone off and we will pick up on the best experience of pathways as a matter of public policy and delivery to ensure that that does not happen. However, we recognise that it would be unreasonable to require people with the most severe functional limitations to engage in mandatory work-related activity. As we know, such people will be placed in a support group and will not be required to take part in work-focused interviews as a condition of receiving the full amount of their employment and support allowance.
Clause 11(1) provides that the obligation to participate in work-focused interviews cannot apply to customers who are in the support group. We are not labelling those people as incapable, but as having limited capability for work-related activity at this time. We expect that many of their conditions might improve sufficiently to enable them to leave the support group at some point. As I made clear in the Committee’s second sitting, and as the Secretary of State made clear on Second Reading, customers in the support group will be able to volunteer at any time for any appropriate support on offer, including work-focused interviews with a specialist personal adviser. Therefore, paragraph (a) of the amendment is unnecessary.
Support group members are not caught by the provisions in clause 11, so their benefit cannot be affected if they do not participate in any work-related activity, provided that they continue to comply with standard benefit rules such as those on permitted work. As there is no risk of support group customers being sanctioned if they do not participate in work-related activity, paragraphs (b) and (c) of the amendment are unnecessary.
However, I do agree with the entirely fair comments of the hon. Member for South-West Surrey about the journey back to work being taken in small steps by many people. For some, that will be about regaining confidence if it has been knocked, undermined or lost. For others it will be about refreshing skills—people who were employed in traditional industries who have been out of work for some time, for example, or people who worked in the world of IT, in which, increasingly, a person’s skills can become stale if they have been out of work for just six months. Volunteering and part-time work are also important steps along the journey back to economic activity.

Jeremy Hunt: I am grateful to the Minister for finally getting around to addressing the substance of the amendment. I shall briefly address the two points that he has raised, and ask him to respond. First, he said that there is no need for paragraph (a) of the amendment, which would stipulate in primary legislation that people in the support group will be able to volunteer to take part in the packages. He says that the Secretary of State has given assurances on the Floor of the House, and that this issue is addressed in the notes to the Bill, but nowhere in the Bill does it say that people in the support group have the right to volunteer to take part in work-related activity. Does not he think it important that that right should appear somewhere in the Bill?
The Minister’s second point was that sanctions would not apply to people in the support group. We accept that that is as it should be, but that is not really the purpose of paragraph (c) of the amendment. It is to ensure that when the Department is arranging contracts with providers to help people to get closer to the labour market, it is accepted that for some people the objective should not be simply to place them in a full-time job. Some people in the support group may volunteer to participate in work-related activities, and for them, the best outcome of the programme might well be part-time, voluntary or community work, or education.

Jim Murphy: Importantly, we also have to ensure that the contracts are right, and we have had discussions on this with private and voluntary sector providers. First, we should try to ensure that as far as possible work is sustained rather than short term. Secondly, contracts should be structured to ensure that contractors do not simply, as a matter of operation, support those who are already nearest to the labour market, although I am sure that most of them do not wish to do that. We will make those two important distinctions in our contracts.

Tim Boswell: I am grateful to the Minister for those assurances. Will he at least acknowledge that if, without prejudice to the level of resources that turnout to be necessary, there is a tightening of the situation—in the real world, this has happened with all Governments at different times—people in the support group will wish to fall back on his pledge that they will not be excluded and their support will not be rationed?
My second point is, in drawing up the structure of contracts for the private contractors who will take on the additional part of this work, while the Minister rightly expresses the need to have certain firm conditions, will he also make it clear that the contractors have an obligation to admit members of the support group to the services that they offer without prejudice to whether or not they are on the support group? They must offer the services to anyone within the allowance, not simply to those who are in its employment or work-related section.

Jim Murphy: Those are entirely fair points. The first of the hon. Gentleman’s two points is captured by clause 11(1)(b) on the basis of any sanctions. If someone is in the support group, we cannot impose anything on them on the basis of subsection (1)(b). That is included in the Bill.

Tim Boswell: I shall be brief, because I realise that the Minister wants to make progress. With respect, that is not a sufficient answer, because it simply says that such people will not lose the benefit. We are talking about a situation where they might lose the right to participate in the programme, which the Secretary of State has promised them.

Jim Murphy: As the hon. Gentleman says, that is about the sanctions on benefit. I shall make some progress and comment on how we intend to ensure that the pathways-style support happens. He is also right about the contracts for the private and voluntary sector: they must be flexible enough to ensure that someone who is in the support group and who volunteers can have access to the pathways-style support. That would be done through the work-focused interviews, which will largely be provided by the private and voluntary sectors. He is right to raise that issue. We intend that it will be fed through into the contracts.
As hon. Members are aware—this relates to the point raised by the hon. Member for South-West Surrey, who may wish to reflect on this over time, perhaps in advance of Report in the Commons—the entitlement to access pathways-style support is enabled through section 2 of the Employment and Training Act 1973. It gives the power to provide such support, and talks about
“assisting persons to select, train for, obtain and retain employment suitable for their ages and capacities”.
That is the primary legislative source of the type of support that we are talking about. I understand that it was the source of the conditionality support through the new deal for disabled people, and is relied on in the extension of support in other benefit regimes and in some of the jobseeker’s allowance new deals.
As the hon. Gentleman knows, the Bill is about setting out new powers to impose conditionality upon those for whom we think it is appropriate. The volunteering would be covered by the powers in section 2 of the 1973 Act. As he also knows, we are currently providing support through pathways to work for those who volunteer, even for those who are in the exempt category. That process will be carried over to ESA for the support group. He might want to reflect on specifics and the powers in the 1973 Act, but we derive the power to provide the support that we refer to as pathways roll-out from it.

Jeremy Hunt: I would indeed like to reflect on the last point that the Minister made. I am still concerned that there is no primary legislative right for people in the support group to apply for the package of support offered under the work-related activity programme. I am grateful to him for responding at some length both to the points that I made in my speech and to the interventions that were made. I am still very concerned that the Minister and the Government have not appreciated the full purpose of my amendment, which is to ensure that the end point of any programme offered is the possibility of steps towards full-time employment, and not just full-time employment itself.
I am concerned that the programmes, as currently designed in the pathways pilots, will tend to favour those on the work-related activity programme, for which people in the support element can volunteer, should they so choose, but that the programmes might not necessarily be designed for them. That is the substance of my concern. Will the Minister respond to that? If he does not, I am afraid that I shall press the amendment to a vote.

Jim Murphy: I shall respond briefly to that point and to some others.
Based on the tone in which the hon. Gentleman moved his amendment, I am not surprised that it might end with a Division. I am not sure that there is much that I can do or say to reassure him, given the way in which he introduced the amendment.
I have an additional concern about the way in which the amendment is structured—[Interruption.]

David Amess: Order. I think that we should ignore the fire alarm and carry on until it gets serious.

Jim Murphy: Thank you, Mr. Amess. I shall carry on until the room is empty.

David Ruffley: Shouldn’t be too long now. [Interruption.]

Jim Murphy: As someone says from a sedentary position, that has nothing to do with the fire alarm.
New subsection (5)(a) of the amendment suggests that the Government should
“ensure a full programme of work focused interviews is offered to those in the support group who indicate a desire to take part in these aspects of the programme.”
Based on what he said at the outset, I suspect that the hon. Member for South-West Surrey will push the amendment to a vote, and I understand why he wishes to do so. However, I do not think that the Government should be compelled to provide full work-focused interview support to everyone in the support group who wants it regardless of circumstance. As the Government and also progressives, that is not where we want to be.
We are talking about folk with often serious and fluctuating mental health conditions and the Government being responsible, under primary legislation, for the provision of work-focused interviews and work-related activity for everyone, regardless of their condition and of whether that interview might be bad for their health, counterproductive to their condition or add to the pressure that they are under.

Adam Afriyie: Will the Minister give way?

Jim Murphy: One moment; this is a serious point.
If the hon. Member for South-West Surrey seriously wants that to be a matter of public policy enshrined in primary legislation, I disagree with him very strongly.
We know from the draft regulations that automatic access to the support group is for those with a terminal illness. We have talked about that already. But it is there also for those who it is assessed on medical grounds might harm others, including Jobcentre Plus staff and personal advisers. If the hon. Gentleman seriously wishes that to be public policy, to enshrine it in primary legislation and to ensure that the Government have that absolute legal responsibility to everyone, regardless of their circumstances, condition and health, as well as the possible impact on those working with them and providing that support, frankly, I think that he is doing a disservice to many of his other comments in Committee thus far.
I do not think that that is what the hon. Gentleman intends, but it is what his amendment would achieve. It undermines many of his well considered comments. On that basis, I encourage him to reflect on whether he wants to put such a provision in primary legislation as part of a supportive mechanism to get people back into the labour market. I do not think that that is what he intended. It is up to him to articulate that if that is indeed what he wants as a matter of public policy.

Jeremy Hunt: Before we conclude and before external events intervene, let me deal with the Minister’s two final points.
First, let me be absolutely clear that my amendment simply seeks to ensure that legislation reflects what the Secretary of State promised on the Floor of the House. That is all we are trying to do. We want to ensure that the Government are true to their word. I know that they want that and I have absolutely no doubt about their good intentions in that respect, but we want to ensure that the Bill commits them to doing what they say they want to do and nothing more.
The point that the Minister made about the amendment having the effect of requiring the Government to offer work-related activity to people who could be a danger to others is a good one, but that does not affect my support for it because I can simply table further amendments to ensure that it does not apply to those individuals. We are trying to ensure that the Bill reflects the commitments and promises that the Government made on a number of occasions.
The Minister’s second point is important and questioned whether we want a Bill that assumes that everyone, no matter what their disability, would want to move in the direction of work-related activity. I stress that the amendment would cover only those who volunteer to go in that direction. That is all we are seeking to do. We want to ensure that the important structure that the Government are putting in place in the Bill, which we welcome, gives as much hope to people who are further away from the labour market as to those who are nearer to it because we have real concerns that the existing structure might unintentionally disadvantage that group.
On that basis, I shall press the amendment to a vote.

Question put, That the amendment be made:—

The Committee divided: Ayes 4, Noes 9.

Question accordingly negatived.

David Amess: Before we come to an expected debate on clause 9 stand part, I remind the Committee that we seem to have had an extremely wide-ranging debate on amendment No. 227 and I hope that hon. Members will bear that in mind.

Question proposed, That the clause stand part of the Bill.

David Ruffley: I am most grateful to you, Mr. Amess.
The Minister may not have agreed with the conclusion of the previous debate, but I congratulate Labour Members, as well as Opposition Members, on a lively and constructive debate. We shall return to it later.
I have only two questions; it will be a short stand part debate. I seek clarity about an issue that is not dealt with under the clause but which has been spoken of and which was prefigured in the Green Paper. It is the ad hoc review of existing claimants under the new regime. My remarks could have been made equally well under clause 8. The principle is the same.
The new PCA applies only to claimants of the new ESA. The Green Paper said that, for existing claimants of incapacity benefit, the Department was planning to complement its existing case review of existing stock with ad hoc case checks by a dedicated new team. The Green Paper stated:
“Where these checks produce doubt about the nature or extent of an individual's incapacity, a fresh PCA will be required.”
That would be a new assessment, should this part of the Bill become law. However, Mind said in evidence to the Select Committee report on pathways published this spring that such ad hoc reviews might induce fear and uncertainty among existing claimants; and that they might be unnecessary, as eligibility for benefit was already reviewed regularly.
My questions are these. First, what are the intentions of the Department as regards doing ad hoc reviews of existing claimants? Secondly, will the Minister tellus about the processes that govern case reviews, particularly the criteria to be used for selecting those existing claimants who will be the subject of ad hoc checks? It is a small, granular detail, but the theme for many of my hon. Friends and for Labour Members is that existing claimants should not have their interests overlooked. I know that the Minister would not want to overlook existing claimants’ rights, but although the issue was flagged up in the Green Paper, it did not make its way into the Bill. It would be useful to hear his thoughts.

Danny Alexander: I, too, will be brief because, although it was a little ill-tempered at times, in our previous debate we managed to bring out several important points. It was a useful discussion.
I wish to raise a couple of points in addition to those raised by the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds. First, I would welcome a little more clarification on the process by which people can move from the work-related activity component into the support component. I seek clarification on how and when it might take place, particularly for those who have a condition that might fluctuate, or whose ability to undertake work-related activities might be affected by other factors such as caring responsibilities—a problem that has been mentioned by hon. Members on both sides of the Committee.
Secondly, I would be interested to know a little more about the way in which the 46 descriptors were arrived at. I have received representations from organisations speaking for those with severe mental illness who say that they were not consulted as much on their limited capability for work-related activity assessment as they were consulted—thoroughly—on their limited capability for work. Will the Minister clarify the Government’s intentions on one or two specific categories, and whether he envisages them automatically being involved in the support component? For instance, questions have been raised about people who are sectioned under the Mental Health Act 1983, whether in hospital or in the community, under guardianship orders or under the proposed new supervised community treatment. Does he envisage that those people would automatically be in the support group? Would they have to go through the assessment? How would they be treated?
It has been put to me that people who are so ill that they have to be treated without their consent for their own safety are not in a position to undertake work-related activity. For example, people subject to residential orders will not be able to leave hospital. There are a number of points on which the Minister could usefully flesh out the Government’s position.

Jim Murphy: The House of Commons never fails to surprise me. In 10 years here, that is the first time I have known an amendment to be moved in Committee after those who tabled it had said that they did not support it in full, and all in the middle of a fire alarm. That was a novel experience.
I shall pick up the points that have been raised. [Interruption.]

David Ruffley: The fire alarm sounds only when the Minister speaks.

Jim Murphy: That is because I speak so much.
With your indulgence, Mr. Amess, we had a wide-ranging debate on a narrow amendment, so I shall be brief. On the point made by the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey, someone in the work-related activity group could move into the support group if they or their personal adviser or carer requested a revised PCA. Within that issue is the matter of how we should support people with degenerative disease, and in my experience there will come a point where such people will be assessed as suitable for the support group. Whether somebody would remain in the support group if they were assessed before being sectioned under the Mental Health Act will depend to begin with on what the medical expert said in the initial PCA. When they are sectioned, a carer, personal adviser or anyone else involved in the process will be able to request a new PCA. Conditionality, such as work-focused interviews and work-related activity, would be suspended. That would clearly be well within the boundary of good cause. We have set out in the draft regulations and the notes for the Committee where we intend to set the bar for good cause, and being sectioned under the Mental Health Act is way beyond what we anticipate to be good cause.
I add parenthetically—I move from gently to parenthetically—that if Opposition Members had been successful and amendment No. 227 had been accepted we would have had a legal responsibility to undertake work-focused interviews and provide work-related activity if a person sectioned under the Mental Health Act had wanted them and volunteered for them. I add my sense of relief that the Committee, in its wisdom, did not support that amendment.

Adam Afriyie: Would the Minister have supported the amendment had that exclusion been made?

Jim Murphy: I have already explained that there is no need for the amendment because of the Employment and Training Act 1973—that is reason No. 1. Reason No. 2 is that it would have moved us in the wrong direction in finding the appropriate way to support people with mental illnesses and fluctuating conditions. There were many reasons not to support the amendment.
I have been encouraged to digress, Mr. Amess, but I deal now with how benefit checks will be carried out. We know from our constituency casework that when people are called for an interview on benefit entitlement, they often think, “What’s this about? Why is this happening to me? Has someone told them something? What does this mean for me?” There is a sense of worry in many instances, as we all know from the people who come to talk to us at our surgeries and to whom we talk in our constituencies. In terms of the current PCAs and benefit entitlement observations, I should like to see a system that is more regularised in that we would tell customers what would be expected within a set period of time. Perhaps at the point when they had applied for incapacity benefit, the norm would be that they would be called and they would have a conversation every year, every two years or whatever, so that there was a sense that this was part of the system. Particularly for those with mental health illnesses, we should not add that sense of worry that they must have done something wrong or that they were no longer entitled to the benefit and that is why the letter came through the post.
Incidentally, there is an important piece of work for us to do to ensure that our forms and letters are much more customer-friendly, particularly as we roll out ESA. One of the things I have been doing in recent weeks, and will continue to do, is sitting with those who have a recent and current experience of a mental health illness and discussing how they think we should restructure some of our communications. It is not something we issue press releases about or issue the names of participants, but it is important to get this redesign for ESA right. Listening to people who have experienced frustration with the current process is important.
As for continued entitlement to the ESA system, if there is a change in condition that is the point at which a new assessment would take place about whether someone was still entitled to ESA at work-related activity level or at support group level. We will learn from best practice how often that should be. One of the lessons that we should take from incapacity benefit is the one I mentioned earlier, which is that we should seek to ensure that those with an experience of mental health know that this is an accepted part of the process. It is not because they have done something wrong and it is not because someone somewhere inside this great government machine thinks that they are no longer entitled to it. It is just a continuing part of keeping in close contact with the customer. It is part of work-focused interviews. It is part of the personal adviser arrangements; and it is part of continuing to ensure that we take account of changing medical circumstances that a customer may experience. We are in the realm of comment rather than specific response here. We are trying to build best experience into the new system.

Question put and agreed to.

Clause 9 ordered to stand part of the Bill.

Clause 10

Work-focused health-related assessments

Danny Alexander: I beg to move amendment No. 25, in clause 10, page 8, line 1, leave out from ‘allowance’ to end of line 2.

David Amess: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments:
No. 28, in clause 10, page 8, line 39, leave out subsection (5).
No. 32, in clause 11, page 9, line 21, leave out from ‘allowance’ to end of line 22.
No. 34, in clause 11, page 10, line 17, leave out subsection (5).
No. 36, in clause 12, page 11, line 30, leave out subsection (5).

Danny Alexander: It is good news that the Under-Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, the hon. Member for Stirling (Mrs. McGuire), will be responding to these amendments. I mean no disrespect to the other Minister; it is nice to have two of them here. I do not think, Mr. Amess, that a clause stand part debate is scheduled for this clause.

David Amess: I am content that there be a clause stand part debate, but I will see how the debate on the amendment proceeds.

Danny Alexander: Thank you, Mr. Amess. I have one or two wider points to make about the nature of work-focused health-related assessments. Can the Minister confirm that those assessments are intended to be similar in some ways to the capability assessment and report that is currently undertaken in the pathways areas, in focusing very much on what people can do—identifying activities in which they can take part and specific health interventions that may help them to get themselves closer to the labour market and ready for work?
There has been some concern that the capability report currently used in the pathways areas is doing some work that is similar to what the personal capability assessment is designed to do, particularly under the revised programme that has been introduced.

David Ruffley: On the capability report in pathways, which has been used as a model—certainly that was the intention for the new assessment—was the hon. Gentleman as surprised as I was to discover that evaluation work done by the Department found, first, that the reports were sent rather late to personal advisers and, secondly, that the IB PAs thought that in many cases the reports were repetitive and included less than useful generic information? Does he join me in hoping that those problems have been designed out of pathways to work and that they will play no part in the new regime, which we hope will operate much better than the capability report?

Danny Alexander: I am grateful for that intervention, as the hon. Gentleman makes an important point. I was somewhat surprised to read those frank comments in the evaluation but welcomed the fact that it included them. Personal advisers said that the quality and level of detail in the capability report was generic, standardised and repetitive, as he said, and some personal advisers said that they were of minimal use—that they did not serve any useful purpose above and beyond what the personal adviser was able to do through the work-focused interview process.
We do not yet have any draft regulations on work-focused health-related assessments, and the details of what is intended in the draft regulations and supporting material are pretty sketchy. Even inthe personal capability assessment report, the developments in respect of work-focused health-related assessments are the subject of six paragraphs. Given all that, it would be useful if the Minister set out in much greater detail than in those documents the natureand purpose of the work-focused health-related assessments, and how the Department has learned the lessons of the pathways evaluation and will ensure that the exercises are useful.
As the assessments are intended, at least in part, to lay the foundations for the conditionality regime that will apply once the Bill is implemented, perhaps the Minister could also clarify when and under what conditions she expects that regulations will be introduced to make the work-focused health-related assessment compulsory. The Committee needs to understand that important point when dealing with the clause.
I draw the Committee’s attention to an exchange that I had with the Secretary of State on Second Readingin which he gave the impression—inadvertently, I believe—in response to an intervention I made on him that it was not the intention to have sanctions or conditionality for the work-focused health-related assessments. He wrote to me about it subsequently, and the letter states:
“It has always been our intention that participation in the work-focused health-related assessments would be mandatory and hence a sanction would be imposed for failure to participate.”
Can the Minister confirm that that is the Government’s thinking?

David Ruffley: This may assist the hon. Gentleman. The explanatory notes suggest that regulations will make provision for reducing the amount of ESA payable if a claimant fails without good cause to take part in an assessment. I believe that we will get to that later, perhaps on clause stand part, but it was obviously prefigured in the Government’s thinking.

Danny Alexander: I am grateful for that intervention. My purpose in raising the matter now is simply to ensure that the exchange that took place on Second Reading is clarified for the record.
We have had a full debate on the issue that is the focus of this group of amendments: that is, the nature of the support group and the extent to which people who are members of it will or will not be able to choose to participate in and benefit from the range of interventions that is proposed in the rolling out of pathways and in the clause.
I appreciate that we have had quite a full debate on this subject, but the purpose of the amendments is to invite the Minister to flesh out the way in which members of the support group will be able to access the support that might be available as a result of taking part in a work-focused health-related assessment. In our previous debate, we talked about work-focused interviews and work-related activity, but work-focused health-related assessments were not the focus of that discussion, and I would be interested to hear more from the Minister about how members of the support group will be able to access the support provided for in the clause. Although it is clear that conditionality will not apply to members of the support group in relation to work-focused health-related assessments, it is none the less important, in the light of the previous debate, that members of that group should also be able to access that support.

Tim Boswell: Given that this is a health-related assessment, is it at least in the back of the hon. Gentleman’s mind that one aspect that might be considered is the appropriateness of provision for access-to-work facilities? As the explanatory notes make clear, the purpose of the assessments is to
“provide additional information about the claimant's functional capacity”.
If the individual has a particular medical condition, which is relevant to their chances of returning to work whether or not they are in the support group, there might be an opportunity to see how that capacity can be supplemented.

Danny Alexander: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point, but I suspect that we will deal with it in more detail on the next group of amendments, so I do not want to steal his colleagues’ thunder. However, access-to-work funding is an important part of ensuring that any employment and support allowance claimant has the best chance of getting back into work. That is why we talked earlier about whether it was possible to have a core assessment that informed decisions about access-to-work entitlements. People could then have those entitlements almost as soon as they had taken part in the assessment, rather than having to wait to get a job offer before seeing what access-to-work funding was available. With that, I look forward to the Under-Secretary’s response to this group of amendments.

Jeremy Hunt: I do not propose to tax you, Mr. Amess, or the Committee for long, because we discussed many of the arguments in the very generous time that you allowed us on the previous amendment. The basis of my party’s support for the amendment is the same as that for our support of the earlier amendment: we want to ensure that the new packages are as available to the members of the support group as they are to members of the work-related activity group. Access to the work-focused health-related assessment is obviously crucial to that.
Will the Under-Secretary clarify a point regarding the work-focused, health-related assessment? As I understand it, the assessment will be a positive interview and will focus on a customer’s capability—on what they might be able to do in the employment market. In so far as it is undertaken for people who are part of the support package, however, will it also look at any part-time, voluntary and community work and any full-time and part-time courses that they might be able to undertake? People might be able to undertake those activities as a stepping stone towards full-time employment or as a goal in themselves, if that is their or their advisers’ realistic assessment of what is appropriate.

Anne McGuire: I am delighted to be under your chairmanship, Mr. Amess.
By way of introduction, let me say that I was fascinated by the previous debate on clause 9 and by some of the comments that were made, not least because, under the previous Conservative Government, I used to manage employment schemes for the most disadvantaged of people. The debate was an interesting exchange of views, because money was an object then and unit costs were a difficulty, so I want to congratulate Her Majesty’s official Opposition on travelling such a long way from the days of the 1980s and 1990s.
Mr. Huntrose—

Anne McGuire: I shall give way in a moment.
Back then, people such as myself in the voluntary sector had no room for negotiation over unit costs, even over those people who were furthest from the labour market and most disadvantaged. I do not want to reopen the debate, but I thought it an interesting observation by way of introduction.
Mr. Huntrose—

David Amess: Order. Before the hon. Gentleman intervenes, I was very lax in my chairmanship of the previous amendment, so I should ask the hon. Gentleman to be careful not to reopen the debate.

Jeremy Hunt: With that stricture, I shall just say that the Under-Secretary was generous in congratulating Her Majesty’s loyal Opposition on their position on this debate. I repay those congratulations by congratulating her Government on understanding the importance of a strong, stable and growing economy as the foundation for all the support that we are able to give to these important programmes.

Anne McGuire: I shall not rise to the bait, except to say that the Labour party always understood the importance of a strong and stable economy. We understood also that all people should share in the benefits of a strong and stable economy, which was not always the philosophy of the Conservative party.

Tim Boswell: Will the Under-Secretary give way?

Anne McGuire: Much as I respect the hon. Gentleman, I fear that we may be trying the patience of Mr. Amess.
Mr. Boswellrose—

Anne McGuire: All right then, since the hon. Gentleman is nice.

Tim Boswell: I promise that I shall not abuse this opportunity. I simply want to ask the Under-Secretary one question, because I was puzzled and slightly alarmed by what she said. I inferred from her remarks that the Government’s position is that money is no object, because she seemed to congratulate the Opposition on having got us to that position—an argument that I do not necessarily concede. If only for the reassurance of her colleagues, will she confirm that she does not regard the Government’s position as one in which money is no object?
Mrs. McGuirerose—

David Amess: Order. Before the Under-Secretary replies and no matter how nice the hon. Gentleman is, I ask her to proceed.

Anne McGuire: Thank you, Mr. Amess, for that little indulgence late on a Tuesday afternoon.
I turn to the amendment moved by the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey. I admit to being a little confused about his contribution tothe debate. I do not know what he thought his amendments would do, but I fear that their consequences would be greater than he describes.

Danny Alexander: It is clear what the amendments would do. They would delete references to the support group in several clauses. The purpose of the amendments is to draw out from the Under-Secretary how members of the support group will in practice access support under the terms not only of the clause before us, but others. I made it clear that the amendments are probing. To some extent, my questions were answered in the previous debate, but that debate did not touch on support group members’ access to the work-focused health-related assessments in any great detail. Can the Under-Secretary provide further information on that?

Anne McGuire: First, in case I do the hon. Gentleman a disservice in what I am about to say, may I confirm that he and his party support the inclusion of a support group within the new benefits system?

Danny Alexander: Having known the Under-Secretary for a little while now, I am sure that she would not seek to do me a disservice in any of her remarks. Given the structure of the benefit, the inclusion of the support group makes sense. As I said in a previous Committee sitting—I do not want to try your patience by going on for too long, Mr. Amess—I strongly believe that a more constructive reform of the benefits system would be a move towards a single working age benefit, with which support for the extra costs of disability were met through benefits such as the disability living allowance, which are payable irrespective of whether someone is in work. However, the purpose of these amendments is to probe the Government’s intentions on the making available to members of the support group the support in this clause and others.

Anne McGuire: I am not much clearer at the end of that contribution than I was at the beginning, but I shall take the hon. Gentleman through some of the issues that he has raised. First, I confirm that the letter that he received from the Secretary of State states the position. I understand that it clarified a comment that the Secretary of State made on Second Reading, and that he was anxious to ensure that the correct position was relayed to the hon. Gentleman.
Secondly, I shall deal with work-focused health-related assessments. I appreciate that we are attempting to bring about a significant change in the way in which the reformed PCA process will deliver for people on the new benefit. I hope that I can give some comfort to colleagues here, and organisations outside Parliament, when I say that we want the new PCA process to underpin the approach of the new welfare reform programme. I think that we can all agree that, to a lesser or greater extent, people were often left to their own devices with very little or no intervention. The new process will move that work-focused health-related assessment on to being a far more supportive and focused tool with which to assist people to get back to work.
The hon. Member for Daventry said that the WFHRA—one of these days we will come up with shorter titles for some of these things—was very much about looking at some of the health-related interventions that might be of assistance to individual claimants when they are on the benefit. It will also allow us the opportunity to identify at a fairly early stage some of the adaptations that might be necessary to support a person going back to work, or often into work for the first time.
We have talked about medical and social models, but the reformed PCA underpins the fact that for many disabled people and people with limiting conditions, solutions regarding physical barriers or adaptations that have not been made, which they perhaps did not think could be made, would allow them to go back to work. It is about building some of those decisions and attitudes into the process pretty early on, because it is important that when people are work-ready, they know what adaptations are necessary, and, more important, that the employer or prospective employer, organisation or company knows exactly what is necessary.

Tim Boswell: I think that the Under-Secretary will accept that I do not seek to pick a quarrel with her on that matter. I am pleased by what she just said in response to my comments. Does she agree that that might well include some appreciation of whether the individual involved has access to public or private transport? Otherwise, people simply cannot get past first base, particularly, although not exclusively, in rural areas.

Anne McGuire: The hon. Gentleman makes a valid point. Although that consideration would not necessarily be part of the work-focused health-related assessment, it will be very much part of the assessment and the support that will be given by the adviser further on in the process.
I shall deal with one or two other issues that have been raised in this short debate. Although I cannot remember who asked about regulations that have not yet been published—it might have been the hon. Member for South-West Surrey—we hope to have those ready for the Lords Committee stage, so we are obviously working on them now.
The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey mentioned the capability report and discussed the issue with the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds. The capability report has been an important advance in how the assessments are made. However, the new report will build on the capability report and, as I have indicated in relation to the assessment, provide additional information, such as how people will be able to overcome some of the barriers to work and the situations to which the hon. Member for Daventry alluded. We understand that, as the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds said, there may be some issues of process in the transfer of information. That is why we piloted pathways, rather than going into them hell for leather.
The hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey raised the issue of support group access to the work-focused health-related assessment. A person who has been assessed to go into the support group can ask for the work-focused health-related assessment at the end of that first assessment. That will be undertaken by a different person, but those concerned can ask to move to that additional part of the process if that is what they so wish.

Danny Alexander: I am grateful for that clarification, which is helpful in two ways: first, in clarifying that members of the support group will have access, which is very positive. Secondly, the Under-Secretary said that the assessment would be carried out by a different person. Can she clarify whether that will be the case for all ESA recipients who are invited to take part in their work-focused health-related assessment, at the end of their limited capability for work assessment and limited capability for work-related activity assessment? Will the same person or different persons be involved?

Anne McGuire: Obviously, we are learning from experience about how best to connect all those elements of the process. There are three elements to a single process. Some of that assessment may be carried out by other professionals or those with some experience—not only on the medical side, but on the occupational health side. I hope that that gives the hon. Gentleman some comfort.
The hon. Gentleman and other Opposition Members have probed certain issues of detail, but I would obviously ask him to withdraw the amendment, which would, as I hope he appreciates—and as he in fact realised—put those people who had gone into the support group into a mandatory position for all the other elements of the employment and support allowance.

Danny Alexander: I am grateful for the Under-Secretary’s response. She has raised a number of issues that I might wish to probe further in later amendments. However, having probed the matters that I was concerned about, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Jeremy Hunt: I beg to move amendment No. 229, in clause 10, page 8, line 3, leave out ‘health-related’ and insert ‘health and disability-related’.

David Amess: With this it will be convenient to discuss the following amendments: No. 230, in clause 10, page 8, line 8, leave out ‘health-related’ and insert ‘health and disability-related’.
No. 231, in clause 10, page 8, line 11, leave out ‘health-related’ and insert ‘health and disability-related’.
No. 232, in clause 10, page 8, line 18, leave out ‘health-related’ and insert ‘health and disability-related’.
No. 233, in clause 10, page 8, line 40, leave out ‘health-related’ and insert ‘health and disability-related’.
No. 234, in clause 10, page 8, line 45, leave out ‘health-related’ and insert ‘health and disability-related’.
No. 235, in clause 10, page 9, line 2, leave out ‘health-related’ and insert ‘health and disability-related’.
No. 236, in clause 10, page 9, line 5, leave out ‘health-related’ and insert ‘health and disability-related’.

Jeremy Hunt: Given the Committee’s desire to make progress, we do not need to have a huge debate on this set of amendments.
There is a question over the wording in the Bill; I think that the Government have inadvertently made a mistake. The amendments deal with clause 10 in which references are made to “health-related” assessments. We would like that wording to be changed to “health and disability-related” assessments. The Committee will understand the important difference between a health condition and a disability, and it is clear that the work-focused health-related assessment, as described in clause 10, is meant to focus on the work people can do despite an adverse health condition or a disability.
The purpose of the amendments therefore is to ensure that we understand that many conditions that can limit a person’s capability for work are not health conditions, but disabilities such as learning disabilities, autistic spectrum disorders, blindness, deafness and so on. We want to make it clear in the amendments that the work-focused health-related assessment will cover disabilities and not just health conditions and ensure that the wording of the Bill makes it clear that, just as we said in discussions on earlier clauses, it is vital for personal advisers and people conducting the PCAs to understand the difference between a health condition and a disability. It is important therefore that the wording of the Bill makes it clear that we as legislators understand that important difference.

Danny Alexander: These amendments are helpful in making clear the extent and scope of what is described as the work-focused health-related assessment. I think that the hon. Gentleman makes an important point about the range of disabilities that might not be captured at the moment. I took it from the Under-Secretary’s earlier comments on access to work—perhaps she will confirm this—that the Government intend the assessment to consider some of the disability-related issues that have been described, not least because, as I understood from her previous response, that process could lead to a recommendation for reasonable adjustments that might cause the person to be subject to access-to-work funding and therefore assist them with returning to work.

Tim Boswell: Has the hon. Gentleman considered the possibility that whereas my hon. Friend made it clear that not all disabilities are health related, it might be that the Government are arguing that limited capability for work—the clause 8 test—automatically constitutes a disability? That might be how they are approaching the matter.

Danny Alexander: I am grateful for that intervention, and I shall pass that on to the Under-Secretary. I am not sure that it is for me to interpret the Government’s intentions, but that was an important point that she might like to clarify.
If the work-focused health-related assessment is intended to have the wider scope described in this debate, the Government, without wishing to make the assessment’s title even longer, should think about whether their language is appropriate. As the Under-Secretary knows, language is important in many aspects of this debate. She might wish to think about whether the name of that assessment is correct and bring forward Government amendments to change it.

Adam Afriyie: I echo what the hon. Gentleman said; language, especially when it comes to learning difficulties and mental health, is incredibly important. The stigma generated by the incorrect use of language is unwelcome. On that point, there seems to be an opportunity to modify the language marginally so that certain types of stigma do not continue inadvertently and unnecessarily.

Anne McGuire: I agree with all Committee members’ that language is important. That is why “health”—not “health and disability”—is mentioned in the clause. Although, superficially, the amendments appear to be minimal in their effect, they could widen the scope of the assessments in a way that the Government do not think would be helpful. To some extent, the hon. Member for Daventry mentioned that in passing in his last contribution and he highlighted it in discussion on the earlier group of amendments.
The assessment is deliberately designed to focus on the support that people will need to overcome the impact on their mind and body caused by health conditions. It is not necessarily about the disability, but about the health-related barriers that prevent an individual from moving into work. The hon. Gentleman mentioned those with learning disabilities. That is a good example. Earlier today, he highlighted the fact that often people assume that individuals with learning disabilities cannot suffer from other health-related conditions. We are trying to be specific about such matters in this part of the Bill. It is not aboutnot recognising the difference between health and disability; it is about saying that, in some circumstances, health-related issues and not matters relating to a person’s disability can be involved.

Jeremy Hunt: I am not sure that I understand what the Under-Secretary is saying. We are not saying that this measure should not relate to a health assessment, but that it should just relate to a health or a disability-related assessment.
Let me give the Under-Secretary a practical example. If someone in a wheelchair, who therefore has significant mobility problems, wants to engage with the labour market, that is not a health issue; they are in a wheelchair with a long-term if not a permanent condition. Clearly, some types of job will be suitable for them—for example, answering the phone on reception or working in an office—and other jobs, such as cleaning, will not be suitable. I understood that the purpose of the work-focused health-related assessment was to help a person understand what jobs and what part of the labour market they might be able to engage with. Surely, taking into account the disability of someone in a wheelchair is an extremely important part of the assessment.

Anne McGuire: It is an important part of the process for that individual, but although the hon. Gentleman has given the Committee a good example to illustrate our point, I am not sure whether there is necessarily in all circumstances a health-related issue for a disabled person. The disadvantages and barriers that he has rightly highlighted can be dealt with in differentparts of the process. However, it is not necessarily appropriate for that to be considered within the health-related assessment part of the process.

Jeremy Hunt: I am grateful to the Minister, but that is exactly my point. As I understand it, there is no other part of the process where a person’s disability—the fact that they have mobility problems—will be taken into account with respect to how best to help them engage in the labour market. It is precisely their disability that needs to be taken into account if the work-focused health-related assessment process is to do its job.

Anne McGuire: I give way to the hon. Member for Daventry.

Tim Boswell: I find myself, not for the first time, thinking very much along the same lines as my hon. Friend the Member for South-West Surrey. It is important that the Minister should be able to explain to us where the disability issues are picked up, if it is not in this clause. It could be that they fall under the appraisal for access to work, but that is work or employment-contingent.
May I say something that is designed to be less critical of the Minister? The other day, when discussing condition-management programmes, I learned that they are exactly what they say they are: designed to encourage individuals to manage their condition. They do not necessarily imply a pledge to remove the condition, sadly, because it may not be removable. Does the Minister have in her mind, in respect of this clause and in the argument that she is developing, some obverse of this, where one is trying to find out what is within the health framework and can be altered, rather than what cannot be altered and will have to be managed in terms of getting close to the labour market?

Anne McGuire: As both my hon. Friend the Minister of State and I have indicated, this is part of a process. I can appreciate the hon. Gentleman’s point of view that perhaps there is an implication that we do not recognise the difference between health and disability. He, and others, might need confidence that we will take into account the support needs of disabled people, which are not necessarily in all circumstances health-related. I reassure him and the Committee that the physical barriers that need to be dealt with for a disabled person to move into the world of work will be dealt with during the work-focused interviews. That is the correct and proper place for them.
We have also clearly indicated that in the health-related assessment we will have an early opportunity to examine some of the issues relating to adaptation, which could then be carried on as part of the process. Obviously the regulations are due to be published, so I will not ask hon. Members just to accept my assurances; it will be part of the regulations, so that we can continue to give people confidence that we are genuinely about moving people who have no access to work, through support, whether it be given through some of our other programmes or health interventions, to a situation where they can genuinely choose work as an option.
I hope that the assurances that I have given the hon. Member for South-West Surrey, together with what will be in the draft regulations—I fully understand that I am expecting him to take this on trust—will meet some of the concerns that he has raised. We have used the word “health” very specifically and deliberately in this clause.

Jeremy Hunt: I just need to understand one point. I am grateful to the Minister for her explanation. On this sort of issue, I would not be at all unwilling to take things on trust, because despite our sparring today, we are all trying to achieve the same thing in this Committee. I want to clarify one point. She seems to be saying that I was wrong to say that this was a question of language. She seems to be saying that the work-focused health-related assessment will in fact not look at people’s disabilities; it will look at people’s health, and therefore at issues such as what happens where someone has a disability and a mental health condition that needs attention. The point of this part of the process is not at all to look at people’s disabilities. If I understand the Minister correctly, she is saying that dealing with the issues relating to their disabilities will be taken care of later in the process. Can she confirm that?

Anne McGuire: I think that the hon. Gentleman and I agree more than is currently obvious. Not all health problems are disabling and not all disabilities are caused by health conditions. We are talking about where we support people during the process. The issues to do with barriers, to highlight the social model aspect of disability, will be dealt with as part of the work-focused interviews. The health-related assessment is very much part of the process of whether we should be looking to see, for example, whether people would benefit from additional physiotherapy. I am talking about issues that are related directly to their mind and body in terms of health. As I said, I think we agree far more than is obvious. The assessment is part of a process. We recognise that, as part of the health-related assessment, we will take the opportunity to look at some of the adaptations that might be necessary, but the focus is specifically on health, not on disability.

Tim Boswell: I think we are getting there, but it has just occurred to me that we do not appear to have mentioned that there is a specific requirement in subsection (7) for the assessment to be carried out by
“a health care professional approved by the Secretary of State”.
That could be a number of people. For example, it could be a physiotherapist or an occupational therapist—occupational therapy is and has been for a number of years my particular interest. From what the Minister said, it is not inconceivable that the assessment would be carried out by an occupational therapist, who would be concerned not only with the functionality of the individual but, often and typically, with the conditions under which that individual would be required either to live their life or to have a working life later on. We move from the narrow, symptom-driven approach to one that is going towards a fuller appraisal, but is at the same time health-driven and professional, rather than being purely advice about how to go to work.

Anne McGuire: That is a helpful contribution. I did not allude to that part of the clause because we are due to discuss amendments relating to it later. The Welfare Reform Bill is linked to many other aspects of our programme promoting equality for disabled people. The hon. Gentleman is well aware of that; indeed, I know that he is very supportive of it. Examples are the extension and strengthening of the Disability Discrimination Act 1995 and the duty on employers to make reasonable adjustments. All those are issues that we have to consider horizontally as opposed to considering just the specific issues in this Bill. There is a dovetailing of responsibilities and of rights.
I hope that the hon. Member for South-West Surrey will not take what I have said just on trust, given that I have given him assurances, but will recognise that, further on in our process, we will have a set of draft regulations that I think will meet the requirements and address the issues that he has raised here this afternoon. In the light of that, I hope that he will withdraw the amendment.

Jeremy Hunt: I am grateful to the Minister for her responses. I completely agree with her that these issues need to be considered holistically because, for a disabled person, the employment and support allowance will be only a part of their benefits package, albeit a very important part. In that spirit, I am grateful to the Chairman for allowing us latitude to talk about the general issue of work, disincentives and the benefits system, which I know is of great concern to hon. Members on both sides of the Committee.
I think I will accept the Minister’s assurances; I shall explain why. It is not an argument that the Minister made herself, but if she is saying that this is really a health-related assessment, not a disability-focused assessment, I can see some benefits in a purely health-related assessment, because we do not pay enough attention to the health issues that affect disabled people. A purely health-related assessment could remove a major stumbling block. I am thinking of the mental health issues, for example.

Russell Brown: I would just like to point out to the hon. Gentleman that he said in a previous intervention, rightly, that language is important. We have been talking about his amendment, which says “health and disability-related”, but the record will show that he used the terminology “health or disability-related”, which makes a significant difference.

Jeremy Hunt: I do not want to get into a discussion about semantics with the hon. Gentleman and whether there is a substantive difference in meaning between work-focused health or disability-related assessment and work-focused health and disability-related assessment. An assessment for disability and health could mean an assessment for disability or health. The purpose of my amendment stands.
I agree with the hon. Gentleman that language is important, but I think the Minister is saying that the language is correct in this case and that the assessment should be health-focused. That is important if we want to help disabled people to get back on the road to engagement in the labour market because of the issues we raised earlier about the complicated and poorly understood interaction between mental health issues and disabilities, and the fact that we know that mental health issues affect a large proportion of the people who go on to incapacity benefit. I see some benefit in a health-focused interview and on that basis I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

Danny Alexander: I beg to move amendment No. 26, in clause 10, page 8, line 21, leave out “, within a prescribed period,”.
The purpose of the amendment is simply to probe the meaning of the term “prescribed period” in the regulations to subsection (2)(f)(ii). This part of the Bill imposes on an individual a condition to providewithin a time limit a good cause for not attendinga work-focused, health-related assessment. It is important to discuss this because someone may have a good cause that leads them to be unable to make contact or they may be incapacitated as a result of their condition and unable to show within a prescribed limit good cause for not attending. We do not have the draft regulations for clause 10, but we have them for work-focused interviews and the prescribed time limit is five days. Is it the Minister’s intention that the five-day time limit should also apply to the time within which someone must demonstrate good cause for not attending a work-focused health-related assessment?

Wayne David: Is the hon. Gentleman suggesting that a time limit should be specified in the Bill, or does he simply want a prescribed time to be deleted?

Danny Alexander: The hon. Gentleman makes a good point. I am probing the Government’s intentions, particularly on how they intend to deal with cases when someone has a good cause that has made it impossible for them to notify the Department within the five-day period specified in the regulations. The way in which the work-focused interview regulations are drawn up suggests that no matter how good the cause, if someone fails to notify what that good cause is within five days they will be subject to a sanction. That seems to be problematic, to say the least.

Tim Boswell: Does the hon. Gentleman have in mind the eventuality of someone who suffers bipolar disorder and finds that they are low for a much longer period than five days and are functionally incapable of communicating that fact to the Department? That would not necessarily absolve people with other conditions, but suggests that the test needs to be sensitive.

Danny Alexander: The hon. Gentleman sets out an example of exactly the sort of circumstances that I have in mind. I hope that the Minister can reassure the Committee that, in such cases, although the five-day time limit—if that is intended for the health-related assessments—is what the Government have in mind for the regulations, sufficient latitude will be given so that in the example to which I have referred or that cited by the hon. Member for Daventry some leeway can be taken into account in such cases. Safeguards should certainly be in place so that they are applied in such examples before sanctions are imposed.
For example, the circumstances described by the hon. Member for Daventry might lead people notto attend a work-focused health-related assessment. Understandably, for whatever reason in light of their condition or impairment, they might not be able to get back to the Department to explain their non-attendance and may then have their benefits sanctioned in the way that has been described. I am relying again on the work-focused interview regulations that describe in detail the sanctioning process and the amountof sanction, not the work-focused health-related assessment regulations because we do not have them. I am sure that members of the Committee would not want to get into such circumstances. While they may be few in number, they could have a significant impact on the lives of those whom I am describing. With that, I should be grateful to hear the Minister’s response.

Anne McGuire: I hope that I can reassure the hon. Gentleman and other members of the Committee about those matters. He has rightly pointed out that we do not yet have the regulations in respect of clause 10. I wish to say at the outset that it is not our intention to make life difficult for people for whom life may already be difficult. We recognise that, in some situations, there is very good cause why people cannot respond within a reasonable time. For the sake of the record, a reasonable time will be five days, but it will be five working days: it will not include Saturdays, Sundays, Christmas day, Boxing day and the September weekend in Glasgow.
At the same time as recognising those issues, we must accept that a time frame often allows people to concentrate on what they have to do, which may be important in their lives. May I describe some of the experience of the pathways to work pilots? We rarely used the sanctions method in work-focused interviews in the pilots. It is not our intention to slap sanctions on people from the point that they take themselves out of the process. If people have a mental health condition or a disability that will impact on their ability to undertake some elements of the process, of course, we will go out of our way to ensure that their particular circumstances are recognised.

Wayne David: I am enormously encouraged by what the Under-Secretary of State said, but can she confirm that, in fact, the sanctions under pathways are as low as 0.8 per cent? I am sure that she will agree that that is very low indeed.

Anne McGuire: I know that my hon. Friend has some experience, if not from his constituency, then near it, of some of the successes of pathways. The sanctions mechanism is there. I suppose that he and I understand why people become upset about it, rightly, given that they are vulnerable people who often have many other things to deal with in their lives at certain times. I want to reassure the Committee that it is our intention to recognise the impact on the lives of individuals, which may make it difficult for them, yet at the same time we believe that it is important to set a time frame, so that the information can come to us. It is not for the benefit of Jobcentre Plus, but for the benefit of individuals, so that they can get themselves on to the right benefit with the right support at the right time.

Tim Boswell: I fully understand the balanced nature of the case made by the Under-Secretary of State and I agree, but will there still be the power for an officer of her Department to waive the provision on the five-day rule if there are felt to be extenuating circumstances? Many years ago, in circumstances I need not go into and that had nothing to do with my own health, I effectively had to take sufficient time out of my life to be able to square my parliamentary expenses within the six-week time limit. I just managed it in time, but these things occasionally happen and while I am sure that the Minister does not want to say to the Committee, “Make a habit of failing to meet your obligations”, there may be cases where it is entirely appropriate.

Anne McGuire: I can give the hon. Gentleman an example that will illustrate his point. If someone is in hospital and they cannot reasonably be expected to attend a health-related assessment, obviously we will need to recognise that in those circumstances, it would be utterly unreasonable for us to expect that person to deliver themselves to an assessment in the five days. In those circumstances, for example, we would give a further month during which they could bring forward evidence leading to a reconsideration of any sanction that may have been imposed. We wish to ensure that the system is as flexible as possible while still recognising that this is a rights and responsibilities agenda and that, within the process, we need to put some milestones along the road.

Adam Afriyie: I have one concern. We are talking about rights and responsibilities, but clearly to conduct a health assessment or any of these assessments, the assessors have to be available. In the circumstance where somebody presents themselves, but there is a strike or the person they are supposed to see is not there, what is the redress for that claimant and where does the responsibility lie? There have been many examples of that happening in other public services. What happens in this case?

Anne McGuire: My hon. Friend the Minister for Employment and Welfare Reform said that strikes are at an all-time low, so that is not the example that would immediately come to mind. The hon. Gentleman has raised the individual’s competency to get the information or, if there is a bus strike and the person relies on public transport, to get to the assessment. Obviously, that would be the sort of issue taken into account.
Our aim in the Bill is to assist people into work and to build in as much support as we can, not to put additional barriers in the way. There should still be a prescribed time and that should be five days, but there will be circumstances, to which we will ensure our advisers are attuned, that will allow people a bit more flexibility.

Adam Afriyie: I thank the Under-Secretary for her generosity. I am raising a serious point about the availability of the actual assessor and what happens if the person arrives to be assessed and the assessor is not available for whatever reason. We have a huge variable here as the Government are talking about letting contracts to the private sector and one never knows what will arise in that kind of scenario. There may be a situation where there are thousands of people around the country who are unable to present for their assessment. What is the safety net and where is there a line in the regulations that would pick up that eventuality?

Anne McGuire: I sometimes fear that we think that unless something is written in law or in regulation, it will not happen. I can give the hon. Gentleman a categorical assurance that, if all the doctors in Atos Origin—there are 243 of them—go on strike one day and people turn up for their health-related assessment, they will have a rescheduled appointment and any expenses incurred will be reimbursed. Does that satisfy the hon. Gentleman?
In that light, I ask the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey to withdraw his amendment.

Danny Alexander: I am grateful to the Under-Secretary for her clarification. She has offered me the reassurance that I was looking for, not least in the suggestion that a further month would be allowed for extreme cases, so I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.

David Ruffley: I beg to move amendment No. 49, in clause 10, page 9, line 4, at end insert—
‘(d) for pilot schemes to vary the time during a claimfor an employment and support allowance at which the work-focused health-related assessment is conducted.’.
This is an important amendment. It is analogous in a way to the debate that we had about melding together the tests in clauses 8 and 9, and the Minister gave a very satisfactory reply to our amendment to the effect that there were legal reasons why there had to be discrete silos of assessments in clauses 8, 9 and 10. However, I need to return to the question of timing and lumping together the three conceptually different tests all at the same time and in the same room.
Amendment No. 49 would allow the piloting of the timing of the work-focused health-related assessment that follows the PCA. The sequence would be the clause 8 test to decide whether someone got the allowance, the clause 9 test to decide whether they came under the support component or the work-related activity component, and, if they came under the latter, they would move on to the work-focused health-related assessment. That is where a potential problem arises. Undertaking the work-focused health-related assessment immediately after the work-related activity assessment could be confusing. For a start, the health-related assessment will take place when the outcome of the PCA might not necessarily be known to the claimant—in fact, it probably will not be.
The PCA assessment and the work-focused health-related assessment perform two separate functions, to establish first whether someone gets an allowance and secondly what support and adaptations someone who is capable of work might need to get them moving towards work. To ask the individual to respond sequentially—a matter of minutes might elapse between the two tests—could be confusing for the claimant. Those concerns—someone will be trying to show that they are ill enough to get the allowance and also having to show some residual functional capability—might be pushing in separate directions. If I were in that room, I would want to show that I was deserving of an allowance and needed support but at the same time I would be told, “What can you do? You’re not that badly off, because we’re trying to show what capability you can display to us in this health-related assessment”.
That tension is acknowledged in the review of the personal capability assessment that was published with the draft regulations. On page 19, it states:
“The timing of the work-focused health-related assessment (whether it should immediately follow the benefit entitlement assessment, or whether it should be carried out at a subsequent appointment) has been the subject of some concern and difference of opinion.”
So the Government acknowledged that difference of opinion in a document published just before these Committee proceedings. It continues:
“There are advantages to carrying it”—
the health-related assessment—
“out at the same appointment: not least the convenience for the claimant of only having to attend one appointment instead of two.”
That is the Government’s logic. It continues:
“Any perceived conflict of interest”—
as I have described—
“could be managed by appropriate explanation of the different nature and purpose of the two assessments.”
There is logic in the Government’s position: they are saying that things will be more convenient. There will not be the travel time and transport costs associated with having a work-focused health-related assessment at a different time of day, or even on a different day, and we can understand why that may be in claimants’ interests. However, I am still struggling, as are some outside groups, to resolve the tension between the two matters that are being demonstrated: capability on the one hand and eligibility for allowance on the other. Someone trying to show capability might see that as compromising the results that they had achieved on the personal capability assessment. They will be doing it within a matter of minutes after a conceptually very different test. I assume that the same person will conduct both tests and that that the claimant will be in the same room with that person, but showing radically different things.
The Royal National Institute of the Blind refers to the two interviews being focused on very different subjects, thereby
“potentially confusing the claimant and leading to anxiety that information disclosed in the WFHRA could be used against them in relation to the PCA decision.”
The words—
“could be used against them”
are quite powerful. That might rightly or wrongly be the perception of a claimant in a situation in which they have to undertake two tests one after the other in the same room.
The amendment seeks not to strike down such arrangements but merely to introduce pilot schemes to vary the time at which a health-related assessment might be undertaken. The pilots could experiment with doing it the day after, or the week after, or at some other time. That would sit happily with the ethos of experimentation, testing, stress testing and the other propositions in the Bill to which Ministers have already subscribed by way of the dummy runs that will occur for parts of the regime to which we shall come in the next few clauses. Ministers have had open minds, and they have said that they will take best practice, and adapt and modify it between now and the time when the allowance is up and running in 2008. In that spirit of consensual piloting, I hope that Ministers will give some consideration to the amendment.

Danny Alexander: I wanted to add a brief point of clarification to the case for the amendment that has just been made by the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds. It relates to a point that we debated earlier: the question of when decisions about benefit entitlement should be made, and of whether sanctions apply to a work-focused health-related assessment. In the earlier debate, the Under-Secretary made it clear, I think, that if the first assessment occurred immediately following the assessment under clause 8 or clause 9, because the decision would not have been made by the decision maker, the sanction would not apply. If so, because sanctions can apply in more general terms to work-focused health-related assessments, a degree of confusion could attach to whether sanctions applied in the case of certain timings. The piloting for which the amendment provides would allow experimentation to take place.

David Ruffley: Does the hon. Gentleman foresee, as I do, a theoretical situation hoving into view, in which an individual has done the clause 9 test and is convincedin his or her mind that he or she has qualified forthe support component? They do not receive a determination on it straight away, because the decision is not made that minute. They are then asked by one of the assessors to do a work-focused health-related assessment, and the individual is quite convinced that it will not apply to them because they are in the support component. Why should they have to start demonstrating capability for the work-related activity component, for which they think they will not be eligible? We can see a situation in which someone says in good faith, “This work-focused health-related assessment does not apply to me. I’m not doing it.” Is a sanction applicable in those circumstances? It would be very unreasonable if it were.

Danny Alexander: That is exactly the sort of circumstance that we need a wee bit more clarity about. From my understanding of what Ministers have said in this Committee, at the end of the assessment under clauses 8 and 9, the Atos Origin employee will make it clear to the claimant whether the result of their assessment will recommend to the decision maker that they be part of the support group. However, I understand that the actual decision about entitlement is taken by the decision maker and not by the Atos Origin doctor. If that is the case and someone who says in good faith, “I think I am entitled to be a member of the support group,” and who is told that they are not, may wish to appeal. If he then turns down the opportunity to take part in the work-focused health-related assessment at that time, it seems only fair that the sanction should not apply in that circumstance.

Anne McGuire: I thought that this was a straightforward amendment, but I see that it is slightly more complicated than I thought. I do not know whether it has been made complicated, but it is slightly more complicated than was initially obvious.
I advise the Committee that we should not assume that there are not occasions when health professionals assess people for both capability and incapacity. It is one of the skills in occupational health that a professional can look at two aspects of a person’s incapability at one time. In some respects, we are in danger of assuming that neither the health professional nor the individual can make the transition from one set of circumstances to another. I mention that as a caveat at the beginning.
I reassure the Committee that all the processes that we are discussing will occur during the 13-week assessment period. During that period, there will be no sanctions. We are setting ourselves a firm deadline for that initial assessment. I hope that that gives the hon. Gentlemen some comfort about where and when the decision making and the sanctions will occur, and I hope that we will not develop the argument totally around the issue of sanctions. As we heard earlier, sanctions form a tiny proportion of the activity in pathways to work. We intend that to happen through the new system.

David Ruffley: I do not mean to disrupt the Under-Secretary’s flow, but I thought that I heard her say that sanctions will not apply during the 13-week assessment phase. However, my understanding of the clause is that regulations may make provision for reducing the amount of ESA payable when a claimant fails without good cause to take part in a health-related assessment. Is that right?

Anne McGuire: I hope that I can clarify the position. The direct question is, “When will the WFHRA be sanctionable?” It will be sanctionable only after the assessment phase period, when the full benefit is in payment and the customer refuses to attend. There could be, for example, a second work-related health assessment. That is what clause 10 alludes to. I hope that that clarifies the matter for the hon. Gentleman.

David Ruffley: This is extremely important and I am grateful to the Under-Secretary. Will she say, in answer to the questions posed by the Liberal Democrat spokesman and me, that if a claimant rejects a health-related assessment under clause 10 that takes place within the first 13 weeks, that cannot, under any circumstances, result in a sanction being placed on them—provided that it is refused within the first13 weeks?

Anne McGuire: If the person continues to refuse after the 13-week assessment, of course, we have the option to decide what action to take. I hope that that clarifies the position for hon. Members.
I shall deal quickly with another matter, because I appreciate that I may be under time pressure because of a vote downstairs. Our preference is that the work-focused, health-related assessment should take place at the same time as the other assessment, but we are prepared to test the issue to see whether that would be appropriate. I use the word “test”, not “pilot”. I say to the hon. Member for Bury St. Edmunds that clause 18 will allow us to do that. Therefore, we already have the power to undertake some of the testing that he and the hon. Member for Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch and Strathspey mentioned. In that light, I ask that the amendment be withdrawn.

David Ruffley: I am most grateful to the Minister, because she has clarified areas that seemed a bit murky in relation to sanctions and in relation to the proposition that there might be testing. If she does not want to use the word “pilot”—well, she says “potato” and I say “po-tah-toe”,—I shall not fuss about its use. If she is giving an undertaking to the effect that there will be some testing of the proposition that the health-related assessment should take place immediately after the clause 9 assessment, and if that is being considered, that will give heart to many people reading the Hansard report of these proceedings; it certainly gives me heart. On that basis, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the amendment.

Amendment, by leave, withdrawn.
Further consideration adjourned—[Mr. Heppell.]

Adjourned accordingly at twenty-seven minutes past Six o’clock until Thursday 26 October at ten minutes past Nine o’clock.